Various attempts have been made to increase the viewing comfort of moviegoers. Among these patents include U.S. Pat. No. 2,380,837 of Gray which describes a modified interior design of a movie theater where the film is projected onto a high screen, so that the viewers view the movie in a reclining position.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 2,537,047 of Gatten discloses a wide-angle pair of glasses that increases a user's field of vision by providing a pair of wrap around lenses that are both in front of and at the side of the viewer's eyes. The lens curves around the viewer's face.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,626 of Grech describes a therapeutic viewing device with two pairs of lens with discontinuous surfaces. The lenses therein have curved surfaces interrupted by flat medial portions. The lenses only affect vision at the peripheral, non-medial portions. Grech '626 is primarily designed for persons with pathological tunnel vision, and it is not specifically for use by persons with normal vision in-seats close to the screen in movie theaters.
Grech '626 does not modify the normal mid viewing portions of the lenses for persons with pathological tunnel vision. Grech '626 only modifies and expands upon the peripheral vision portions, which are deficient in persons with pathological tunnel vision.
In contrast, for the general movie viewing public in close proximity (i.e. 30 feet or less) to a movie screen, producing discontinuous lenses which do not modify the mid viewing portion of the lenses is counterproductive in an overall method of uniformly minifying the wide screen view to a movie viewer with normal vision.